A smooth, mild-flavored type of processed lunch meat usually sliced thin and eaten on sandwiches, or something that is nonsense or lies.
From Italian 'mortadella di Bologna,' named after Bologna, Italy, where this type of sausage was originally made. The city name became the food name, and eventually 'bologna' slang came to mean 'baloney'—nonsense.
Bologna's been made in Bologna, Italy since the 1600s, but Americans invented the slang 'that's baloney' (nonsense) around 1900 because the processed American version was so different from the Italian original—calling something 'processed' became an insult! The city name literally became a word for 'fake.'
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